The Hare’s
Tale !

I
am happy to lay a trail but I always hate going to the venue and
asking the publican whether they are able and willing to have a
ragtag group of eccentrics fill their car park and muddy their
carpets. Inevitably I avoid it to the last minute when Florence is
leaving increasingly desperate messages on my answer machine. This
time even my co-hare was pressurising me to “sort it out”.
So after further discussion I plumped on Finchampstead as it is
familiar running territory and plucked up the courage and called in
at The Greyhound on my way home from work. Actually I drove into the
car-park and out again avoiding the skips and other builders rubbish
outside a hostelry that was “Closed for re-furbishment”!
Now with absolutely no wiggle room I opted for the nearest
alternative and where I’ve laid a trail from before and was
welcomed with open arms by the co-manager of the Queens Oak who was
even more delighted that my chosen date coincided with his weekend
off!

I did one peremptory
recce on my own and decided on a basic trail – you know it
always goes this way! C5 and I then met on the Thursday before to
fill in the finer details like where, why, how long etc. I was
completely knackered having been persuaded by C5 to join with the
Oxford Hash the night before running round Abingdon. Using John
Cleese’s directions we found the start with ease (A round trip
of 96 miles!). Twanky, TT2 and the late as ever Zebedee and Florence
were also on hand for a tour of the housing estates and Eggplant
Curry (Yum Yum!)

The day of our run
dawned and a bleary eyed set of Hares gathered their bags of flour
and set about laying false trails down six of the seven possible
options out from the pub and then off down our chosen route On! Apart
from being a dull morning it is a beautiful area and with the leaves
well on the turn it was good fun finding extra bits of shiggy and
denser and denser bits of forest to plunge you all through! We made
good progress and apart from several of the largest dogs I have ever
seen taking an interest in us and the apparent inevitable rain shower
half way round (C5 is apparently a rain god and he always gets wet!)
we were back at the pub by 10.40 in time to change and prepare for
the arrival of our invited guests.

We stood in silence to
remember the fallen from past wars as Simple played the “Last
Post” on his radio and then read a short and moving poem.

A quick explanation of
the markings for our visitors and a brief introduction of the
delights ahead and we were off and almost all in the wrong direction!
Having only remembered to print a map for the walkers at 2am in the
morning I was ill prepared for the number of walkers (three of the
copies only covered half the trail!) and it was soon obvious that as
the sweeper upper I was going to have to be on my toes and as I was
already hungover and exhausted, a long morning beckoned.

It is however always
good to see Jwax, Ms Whiplash, Penny and Lilo Lil amongst others and
I did my best to guide them down a couple of early short cuts.
Catching up myself I got back to the mid pack and near where we had
laid a check in sight of the pub which I had thought even the daftest
of our company would not be fooled. Needless to say Zeb had checked
out to the false across the field though it is not clear whether as I
have always suspected, he has no sense of direction or does it for
the exercise (There are more pleasant ways you know!) On to the first
re-group and then to the first opportunity to short cut the middle of
the pack by a bit of misdirection though this did waste the next bar
we had laid. At this stage we had lost one group of walkers who had
the only proper map as they too had followed the arrow in the wrong
direction. As Dutch put it later “the map was crap so we went
our own way! “ Charming but even Kneetrembler looked relaxed
afterwards: Trembler just looked thirsty! Itsyor at this stage
admonished us for going “off piste” but our map clearly
shows a footpath and the free range Alsatians weren’t out
today! The climb over the fence back onto legal land slowed things
up a bit more.

I meanwhile was trying
to catch up across the top of the ridges to assist my beleaguered
fellow Hare. Another short cut which missed out a dash down into a
beautiful dip littered with Autumn leaves but was also scattered with
rusting cars and we were at the second re-group. It all went a bit
pear shaped at this stage as a group of the short cutters set off
early never to be seen again! A bit of trail had been laid the
previous day and confused by a sign left for the walkers, led
doubtless by Simple (who is a word very close to walker?) they
decided to do the first part of the trail again.

I meanwhile was looking
after Dumper and Septic (I’ve lost them before), chatting to
Whinge and meeting
up with Billy who was on the short trail for some reason whilst C5
guided a surprisingly large group including Mother, Lemming,
Tinopener et al on the long trail via a new footpath and then on to
the Church.

Our lost lambs
eventually returned and a thank you to Shandyman and Potty for asking
the way home. I blame the RA – He blamed the Hares. Caboose was
glad to warm up Swallow and Donut in the circle and hasn’t been
so happy since the last time he went on the Bluebell Railway!

A good day we hope
enjoyed by all and that hot bath later was so good!

Joint
Hash Camra 2007 2nd
December – Sonning Village Hall

Sample Butler’s
finest beers + Food + Xmas Pud. £4 for food and run(s). Book in
with C5. Beer £1 a pint. Bring plate, cutlery, and drinking
vessel. The Air Ambulance will be on stand-by!

On On. Slowsucker:

Down Downs

Simple presented the
following:-

Name

Reason

Style
points

Old
Dog

Vibrating
Trousers

Kept
her quiet for a moment!

Septic

I’ve
forgotten!

Sipped
White Wine

Varry

The
Virgin

A swift half.

Shandyman

Being
Little Bo Peep

Scary!

Slick
the Lick & Smoking Hardon

Being
Kiwis and being here!

Better team work than the All Blacks

Whinge
presented Bogbrush with the Cross for no better reason than it
being his Birthday (60?)